Week after week, Ron McNeil and his bandmates go onstage and impersonate four of the most beloved, admired, documented, mythologized, scrutinized, retailed and altogether idolized men of the last century.

Ahoy!
I receive numerous emails every day from people seeking nautical information, and not everyone is a boater. They want to know what a boat is worth, get navigational tips for a voyage and learn the long-range weather forecast because they will be...

Constant chirping from dozens of birds might get on some people's nerves, but the noise is music to science teacher Jayson Ruth's ears.
The educator from Huntington Beach High School listened and watched dozens of varying species of terns from the...

The turnout at the Taste of Fountain Valley on Saturday at The Center at Founder's Village Senior and Community Center is evidence of the community's commitment to technology education, organizers said.
The Fountain Valley Educational Foundation, which...

It's a mystery that goes back at least to the mid-1980s, when a Sunset Beach diver named Greg Lacey first discovered what he called treasure tides.
As the Los Angeles Times described in 1986, Lacey had been discovering lots of loot in the predawn surf,...

The La Bolsa Tile Co. The Holly Sugar Factory. The Pacific Broom Co. The Pacific Oil Cloth and Linoleum Factory. And it goes on.
These are the ghosts of Huntington Beach.
But then there are the actual physical traces scattered all over the city. The bell at the Lake Fire Station, which is from the original firehouse once located off Main Street. The pieces of statuary saved from the old municipal building that are now on display off Gothard Street in the parking lot of a public works station. The last...

Ever since I became a journalist, I have had one burning desire: to work the phrases "National Poetry Month" and "The Human Centipede" into the same column. With the following piece, my career will be vindicated.
I'll get to the second phrase later. But first, National Poetry Month, which will begin early next week. According to the Academy of American Poets' website, the April holiday was created in 1996 to encourage schools, libraries, publishers and others to celebrate the craft.
Why April? The...

Beach and Edinger. Warner and Gothard. Heil and Bolsa Chica. At more and more intersections, I notice them, growing in numbers. Do you?
They are the forgotten and the fringe. The homeless and the hustlers. Some beg for money. Some just wander aimlessly. Others argue aloud, conducting jagged, stilted conversations with demons unknown.
You cannot categorize them all into one convenient group. Most seem harmless, haunted and genuinely needy. But then recently a homeless man was arrested on suspicion of...

Google Inc. Photos

Blanking and more blanking. The AYSO Girls U12 Extra Club Team Huntington Beach Region 55 team (whew!), also known as the Strikers, earned the League Cup 2012 Sunday.
Team mom Susan Steiner let us know that nobody could score off the team during the tournament at the Tustin Sports Complex.
The girls won two games Saturday, 5-0 against Newport Beach and 2-0 against San Juan Capistrano. They won Sunday 3-0 against Corona del Mar and finally 5-0 against Yorba Linda.
Coaches Nick Davison and Mark DiLauro...

It's a label Liza Minnelli cherishes, and one she's never fully understood.
"Gay icon." Ask her to explain it, and she'll come up empty.
On Google, Minnelli's name alongside that two-word phrase cues up 117,000 results. When she performed back east this spring, the Huffington Post's headline even credited her with economic clout: "Liza Minnelli's Borgata Hotel Performance Helps Renew Gay Travelers' Interest In Atlantic City."
A 2009 survey from http://www.onepoll.com named her the fifth-biggest...

Come back, Mitt Romney. All is forgiven.
That comment you made about the binders full of women? Yes, it sounded a little off-kilter at the time, and the nation's comedians have teed off on it. But in the annals of off-the-cuff remarks politicians have made about the opposite sex, it's hardly the worst.
President Obama? Yes, you got some scathing reviews for your performance in the first debate, but we all have our listless days.
Justin Verlander? The Giants shelled you pretty badly in Game 1 of the...

By now, many people have seen the orange posters around town that say "No on Z." But what exactly is Measure Z? Measure Z proposes the elimination of a property tax that helps to fund the pensions of public employees.
Unfortunately for the city and its residents, if this passes, the city will still be obligated to pay these pensions and will consequently be forced to cut essential safety and social services in order to do so. So even though homeowners would save around $6.25 a month, they would lose...